Big Money in Politics
Before we arrived at the era of daily Trump trauma, one of the continuing sore spots on the left side of the political spectrum was the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case that opened up greater avenues (10 lane freeways) for money to enter the political process. Campaign finance reform has been a left issue for years. Let’s get big money out of politics! Return the process to the people! It should be noted in passing that the only serious effort to deal with the issue at the federal level in the last two generations was spearheaded by a Republican — John McCain. He had a Democratic co-sponsor, but he was the driving force.
In my view, all of the efforts to limit campaign cash are misdirected. Money has always found a way in. We managed to move past the era of suitcases full of cash, but the operatives will always outlast the regulators in the long run.
The preferred solution of the left has, for many years, been public funding. I think this is a terrible idea for three reasons.
Equal funding to incumbents and challengers is inherently unfair. Incumbents have the advantage of visibility and various ways to use their power to electoral advantage. Challengers typically need more money in order to overcome the advantages of incumbency.
Public funding of campaign expenses is the antithesis of free speech and the open marketplace of ideas. Taxpayers are compelled to pay for political speech, much of which of which will be abhorrent to them. Anyone funding political speech must be free to fund the speech they select.
Public funding attracts candidates who are working out an agenda on the taxpayer dime. The Rev. Al Sharpton ran for president so he could spend a few months having taxpayers pick up his luxury hotel tab. Neurotics run to work out their issues. Aspiring politicians/celebrities run without hope of victory in order to raise their profile using other peoples’ money. The necessity of raising cash to fund a campaign separates out the serious candidates. Those doing the funding are voting with their dollars.
The second major stream of “reform” is limiting the amount of donations. A waste of time. Attention span beats regulation almost every time. Big donors switch to bundling money from their friends/business associates/vendors. Big donors set up or contribute to “independent” committees that work on behalf of favored candidates (without consultation, of course).
The cry of the left is that big money favors those horrid conservatives. Bullbleep! Year after year, the biggest campaign contributor, by far, is public sector labor unions. They don’t contribute to Republicans. For every dreaded Koch brother, there is a Soros. The biggest individual donor in the last two election cycles was Tom Steyer. All those pilgrimages to California by Democratic candidates are not in search of additional votes in Beverly Hills or Woodside. The $50,000 per couple dinners aren’t a sideline of the trips. Nancy Pelosi has run the Democratic caucus in the House for all of these years because she has raised literally hundreds of millions, which she passes out to other House members for their campaigns. The rage against Citizens United is gorilla dust.
The good news is that the problem is in process of solving itself.
Bernie Sanders proved that you don’t need big money to run for president. Almost all of his money came in via the web in small amounts.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proved that you can win a House seat with almost no money. Reflecting the values of the primary voters (the ideological segment of the voting public) and working hard can trump a money and incumbency advantage.
Donald Trump proved that the best funded candidate is not always the winner. As far as I can tell, Hillary spent (including expenditures by outside groups) three dollars for every dollar Trump and his outside supporters spent in 2016. Maybe it was that few hundred thousand the Russian trolls spent on Facebook that tipped the balance, but I doubt it.
Working Facebook and other sites (whose names I know not) has become a political art form. When Obama’s team did it in 2012, it was deemed brilliant. A whole new class of campaign consultants was born. When Trump’s team did it in 2016, it was deemed sinister
In the era of Amazon, politics is just a Buy Now click away. It’s a new world. Targeted social media and small dollar donations are the wave of the future.
